1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus and a method to control the same, wherein a fusing temperature is controlled according to a print pattern of an input image to improve a print speed of the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus, such as a general printer or a multifunction printer, performs a fusing process to apply heat and pressure to a print sheet with a toner image transferred thereto in order to fix the toner image to the print sheet. The fusing process is important in forming a high quality image.
When power is supplied to the image forming apparatus, a preheat process is performed to provide heat until a preset fusing temperature is reached. The fusing temperature directly affects the fusing performance of the image forming apparatus.
According to a conventional method, the fusing process is performed after a specific fusing temperature is reached, which imposes a limitation to increasing a print speed. For example, a print time required to print a first page after a fusing heater is preheated is constant in the conventional method. Accordingly, the print time is extended.
In an effort to solve this problem, a number attempts have been made to reduce the print time required to perform printing in response to a print command from the user.
One solution to reduce the print time of the first page of the input image to increase the print speed is ceramic heating using a ceramic-coated heating roller to rapidly raise the fusing temperature. Although the ceramic heating can reduce the preheat time compared to the conventional method, the ceramic heating increases a financial burden due to use of expensive parts of the ceramic heating.